Wanderings in Wessex eBook

of Roman buildings were discovered while excavations
were being made in High Street about twenty years
ago. Alfred rebuilt the town and founded St. Mary’s
Abbey, with his daughter Aethelgiva as first abbess.
The removal of the body of the martyred Edward hither
from Wareham, after his murder at Corfe Castle, gave
Shaftesbury a wide renown and caused thousands of
pilgrims to flock to the miracle-working shrine.
For a time it was known as Eadwardstow and the Abbess
was a lady of as much secular importance as a Baron.
The magnificent Abbey Church was as imposing as any
we have left to us, but not a vestige remains except
the fragmentary wall on Gold’s Hill and the
foundations quite recently uncovered and surveyed.
One of the most interesting discoveries is that of
a twisted column in the floor of the crypt that is
thought to be part of the martyr’s shrine.

[Illustration: GOLD HILL, SHAFTESBURY.]

Shaftesbury once had twelve churches, but one only
of the old structures remain. This is a fine
Perpendicular building of simple plan, chancel and
nave being one. The tower is noble in its fine
proportions and the north side of the nave aisle is
beautifully ornamented and embattled. Holy Trinity
and St. James’ are practically new churches,
although rebuilt on the ground plans of the original
structures. On the west side of the first-named
is a walk called “The Park” that would
make the fortune of any inland health resort, so magnificent
is the view and so glorious the air. The hill
on which the town is built rises abruptly from the
valley in a steep escarpment, so that the upper end
of High Street is 700 feet above the sea. There
is therefore only one practicable entrance, by way
of the Salisbury road. Of actual ancient buildings
there are few, although at one time there was some
imposing medieval architecture in this “city
set on a hill,” if we may believe the old writers.
It once boasted a castle besides the Hostel of St.
John Baptist and its many churches. It may have
been in this castle that Canute died in 1035.

The station for Shaftesbury is Semley, just over the
Wilts border, but it is proposed to take the longer
journey to Gillingham, nearly four miles north-west,
which is the next station on the South Western main
line. This was once the centre of a great Royal
“Chase,” disforested by Charles I. It
was also the historic scene of the Parliament called
to elect Edward Confessor to the throne, and at “Slaughter
Gate,” just outside the town, Edmund Ironside
saved Wessex for the Saxons by defeating Canute in
1016. The foundations of “King’s Court
Palace,” between Ham Common and the railway,
show the site of the hunting lodge of Henry III and
the Plantagenet kings. Gillingham church was spoilt
by a drastic early nineteenth-century restoration.
The chancel belongs to the Decorated period.
There are several interesting tombs and a memorial
of a former vicar over the arch of the tower.
He was dispossessed as a “malignant” during
the Commonwealth, but returned at the Restoration.